


Little Miracle

by ailixandrite2dot0 (AILiSeki)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Major Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Post-Steven Universe Future, Temporary Character Death, White Diamond is really trying (SU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25428688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AILiSeki/pseuds/ailixandrite2dot0
Summary: White Diamond goes on a mission in a distant (former) colony, where a small group of gems went too far in their attachment to the old ways.
Relationships: Spinel & White Diamond (Steven Universe), White Diamond & Original Gem Character(s) (Steven Universe)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Little Miracle

White Diamond didn’t usually receive calls. She didn’t have many gems that would call her. It was no one’s fault but her own, that she started Era 3 with no one but her family by her side. She tried not to think of it too much. The thing was, White Diamond didn’t usually receive calls, so when she heard the ringing from her screen indicating she was receiving one, she needed a moment to remember how to do it.

From her shoulder, Spinel laughed at her obvious confusion.

White answered it. It was that blue Zircon recently chosen as the first president of Homeworld. She looked somehow different from when White last saw her. Less nervous. More confident.

“Thanks the stars you picked up.” Zircon said. “I’ve been trying to call Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond all day. What do these two do that they can’t pick up a call?”

“I don’t think you would like to know,” White said. Spinel giggled.

“Right.” Zircon sighed. “I only need one of you anyway. I hope you aren’t busy.”

“Not particularly. Is there something wrong?” White hoped that by this point she had already paid her debts with society, but she knew it was hardly the case.

“Yes. There was an incident on planet Purpura.”

“An outer colony,” White said. Then, too late, added. “ _Former_ colony, of course. What sort of incident?”

Zircon slowly waved her arm, her constant frown deepening. “I don’t even know where to start. Everything is a mess. One gem was shattered.”

“Discontented gems? Don’t you have gems to deal with this?”

“We do, we do, but…” Zircon sighed. “The situation is complicated. If the report we received is true… I’d rather you went there first and checked it. Could you do it?”

White Diamond smiled, amused. She wasn’t used to receiving requests, and certainly not orders. She wasn’t sure of which one it was. It was exciting either way.

“Of course, my president. Can my best friend come with me?”

“This is not…” Zircon’s eyes went to Spinel, sitting silent but not still on White’s shoulder. “You know what? Do as you want. But be aware that it might be dangerous.”

White Diamond nodded.

“The planet’s registered population consists of three Peridots, counting the one who was shattered. Go there, talk to them, and report to me what exactly is going on there. That’s all.” And with that, the call ended.

White Diamond was happy with this turn of events. It was good that she was keeping good relations with the current government. Steven would be proud!

“I can go with you?” Spinel asked, looking up at her with shining eyes.

There were two reasons why White wanted Spinel to go with her. The first was for Spinel’s sake. She knew Spinel didn’t like being alone, even now, and while she wouldn’t be completely alone, as Blue and Yellow would be there, as would all her new friends, she still wanted to let Spinel know how much she appreciated her company. The second was for her own sake. White knew there would be a lot of talking involved in this mission and despite all her progress, she still found talking to other gems hard. She wasn’t Steven, or Pink, or even Blue or Yellow. She made mistakes without even realizing it. Spinel was the only non Diamond gem with whom White felt at ease, and the small pink gem may not know but she had a way to warm everyone up.

Maybe, just maybe, the second reason out-weighted the first.

“You heard our president. It might be dangerous.” White warned. In the end, nothing mattered as much as Spinel’s safety.

“I can take care of myself!”

White smiled. “Alright.”

* * *

Planet Purpura was very… purple. It was formed mostly by deserts covered in purple sand. It had been at the early stages of colonization when Era 3 was declared. White could see from the warp pad the outline of a half-finished kindergarten in the distance.

It had been one of White’s colonies. It had one warp pad, the one she was currently on, one small base for the kindergarteners, and the half-finished kindergarten. There was little organic life, most of it microscopic. President Zircon didn’t give White access to the report about the Peridot who was shattered or whatever else that was going on in there.

White believed it was just the Peridots not accepting Era 3, like some other gems hadn’t. Steven had dealt with some of them, the president’s forces with many others. She didn’t understand why Zircon called her to deal with this case.

As she stepped out of the warp pad, a loud boom caught her attention. Looking towards it, she saw dark purple smoke. It made her frown.

“What was that?” Spinel asked.

“I don’t know. This planet shouldn’t have volcanic activity.” White pulled up her screen to check the data on the planet, but her impeccable memory had yet to fail her. “The base is that way. We should talk to Peridot facet 5D8F cut 3XO, she was the leader here during Era 2.”

Spinel nodded and jumped from White’s shoulder, stretching her legs to the ground.

The two of them started walking towards the base, which wasn’t too far away. White soon spotted two Peridots standing outside of it, looking at the sky where minutes ago the smoke was. It didn’t take long for the Peridots to see her as well, and run away in panic to the base.

“Wait! I need to talk to you!” She shouted, but it was no use. The Peridots entered the base and closed the door behind them.

White could easily unlock the door, but entering that way was “rude” so she would only do it as a last resort. Instead, she decided to just knock.

“Hello? I need to talk to Peridot facet 5D8F cut 3XO. Can you please open this door?”

There was no reply. White crossed her arms.

“May I try?” Spinel asked. White nodded. She walked closer to the door and knocked it. “Hello? Peridots?”

“Go away!” A very scared voice shouted back.

Spinel exchanged a worried look with White.

“We’re just here to talk. About the incidents? The report to the president?” Spinel insisted.

“We suggested they just blow up this planet at once, and we meant it!” The Peridot said. “We are sinners! We are not worth the gaze of anyone right now!”

“What do you mean?” White asked. She wasn’t really expecting to get an answer, as the Peridot didn’t seem as willing to talk to her as she was to talk to Spinel, but after a few moments, it came.

“M-m-my Diamond! We’re so, so ashamed!” She said, her voice breaking. “We never wanted to- oh, please, just shatter us at once! We are not worthy of your radiance!”

“I’m not here to shatter anyone,” White said, softly but with a hint of annoyance showing. It was clear these gems were stuck in the past, but being received with such a reaction didn’t feel nice. “I am just here to talk. I need to know what is going on.”

A pause. “Y-you don’t know, my Diamond?”

“No. Will you tell me?”

To White’s surprise, the door opened. She looked down to see two trembling and crying Peridots, their arms shaking too much to hold a proper salute.

“We are the worst scum in the galaxy!”

* * *

The door of the base was a little too small for White, but fortunately, the ceiling was not. And to imagine she wondered for a while if that building standard was a waste of material! It took a few millennia, sure, but White was finally making use of it.

Still, she sat down on the ground, minding what Steven taught her about eye level. She couldn’t easily get at the same eye level as the Peridots, but that made it a little closer. Spinel stood by her side, and the two still scared Peridots stood in front of them.

“Don’t be scared,” White said in her best calming voice. It didn’t work much.

“We just want to know what is going on.” Spinel said. “We heard your friend was hurt?”

“3XQ…” One of the Peridots said. White recognized her from the data she read before coming as Peridot facet 5D8F cut 3XO, the leader.

The Peridot looked up and both White and Spinel followed. A green bubble full of green shards floated near the ceiling.

“It’s my fault.” Peridot facet 5D8F cut 3XO said.

“It’s all _our_ fault.” The other Peridot, facet 5D8F cut 3XP, said. “We all did it, together…”

“What did you do?” White asked.

Peridot 3XO took an unnecessary breath. “We received the most recent transmissions from Homeworld. About Pink Diamond and… Era 3. We understood what our newest orders were.” Her robotic fingers briefly touched the white insignia on her chest. “We understood that we wouldn’t be receiving any new orders, and that we had to decide on our own what to do next. We thought we could do it.”

White nodded. The Peridot looked down at her hands.

“We couldn’t. We felt so lost. How were we supposed to just make choices? We’re just Peridots. We don’t know how to run this planet, even if there’s only us living here. We don’t know what to do without a Diamond ruling us.”

She sobbed. Peridot 3XP put a hand on her shoulder.

“We talked about it and found out we all felt the same way.” 3XO continued. “We wanted to receive orders from a Diamond. But no Diamond would give us orders anymore. So we… we…” She now sobbed uncontrollably. “We went too far. We tried to play Diamond ourselves.”

White frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We know how to make gems,” 3XP said. “In theory, of course. We know what to mix to make a Quartz, or a Sapphire, or even one of these.” She pointed at Spinel, who frowned at the way she was referred to. “We had a still unused planet, an empty kindergarten, and materials and equipment left with no use. We studied the gemetics and…” Her voice broke.

White’s eyes widened. She could tell where this was going, and she didn’t like it one bit.

“You couldn’t.”

“Of course we couldn’t, but we were so blind! So we tried… we tried to make a Diamond!” Peridot 3XO cried.

“But it didn’t work, right?” White said, fists clenching on her lap.

“We… we made a gem.” Peridot 3XP said.

“That’s impossible. You didn’t have enough time to incubate her!” White exclaimed.

“Purpura had been chosen as one of the sites for the testing of some experimental techniques for quicker gem production…” Peridot 3XP’s voice slowly faded as she noticed the anger coming from White.

In fact, both Peridots and even Spinel were looking at her anxiously.

“That’s… extremely irresponsible,” White said, trying to keep her voice even.

She wasn’t mad. Okay, she was. But not for the reasons the Peridots seemed to believe. They called themselves “sinners” and “scum”. They thought they had just disobeyed some unspoken order, disrupted some invisible cosmic balance by daring to use their knowledge to produce a gem of a higher class than they were allowed to. Which was a very logical conclusion from the ideology White had put in place in her empire.

But White had long since abandoned such ideology, so the cause of her anger was a much more practical one. These gems didn’t know what a newly emerged Diamond could be like. They didn’t seem to know just how much planning and care went into the making of a Diamond, they didn’t seem to consider the risks, did they even realize how powerless they were? They put themselves in immense danger, and fortunately there were no more gems on that planet that could be hurt. They were lucky there had been just one shattering.

“What is the gem you made like?” She asked.

“She’s per- she is adequate, gemetically speaking. No visible defects.” Peridot 3XO said.

“Of course, she is visibly of a lesser quality than a real Diamond.” Peridot 3XP quickly added. “She’s small.”

“Not as small as Pink Diamond used to be. Not implying that Pink-”

White raised her hand to interrupt her. “What happened when she emerged?”

“She… she became our replacement Diamond.” Peridot 3XO said. “She gave us orders and we followed. All was well for a while. Until one day she lashed out. We had never seen her using her powers before. We didn’t even know she had any powers. She released fireballs from her hands… they broke parts of the ceiling of the room where we were. 3XQ was hit by one of them. After that, she ran away. We can still hear the explosions coming from wherever she is.”

White thought back on the sound she heard when she arrived on the planet. So that was it. This gem was hiding somewhere, still causing destruction.

“How much does she know about Homeworld?” She asked. “About other gems?” _About me?_ , was what she really wanted to ask, but she wouldn’t admit it even to herself.

“Everything any other gem would know.” Peridot 3XO said. “She even knows about the latest transmissions, about Era 3, all of it.”

White Diamond nodded. “I have to report this to the president.”

“My Diamond, do you really report to that-” Peridot 3XO started, but stopped as White Diamond raised her hand.

“Zircon is the gem chosen by the majority to be their leader. I respect this and you should as well. You had the right to vote too.”

“We never wanted a new leader, my Diamond!”

White took a deep breath and tried to show the kindest expression she considered herself able to.

“I am not your Diamond anymore.” She said softly. “You are free, Peridot. You both are. It seems you are still struggling with the idea, which is to be expected, but soon enough you will learn to appreciate it.”

The two Peridots nodded slowly.

“What will happen now? To _her_?” Peridot 3XP gave the door a glance.

“That’s not my decision to make. She represents a threat, and not only to you and this planet.”

Again the Peridots nodded, but something was off about them. White gave Spinel a look, trying to silently ask her what she thought of it. The smaller gem just frowned.

White asked the Peridots for permission to check Peridot facet 5D8F cut 3XQ’s bubble to examine her state, and then to take a look at the room where she got shattered. She saw the damage done to it, the hole on the ceiling with dark edges. This gem was powerful, and had incubated in a remarkably short time. White hoped nothing like this would happen anywhere else too.

She then returned to the base’s main room and called Zircon to report the situation, the two anxious Peridots and Spinel watching it from behind her. She watched the president grow more and more distressed at every new information.

“So there is really a powerful and dangerous gem at loose in there, huh. We need to capture her.”

“I suggest you do it soon,” White said. “She is a newly emerged Diamond, she may not yet be aware of all her abilities. There may be no more convenient moment than this.”

“You _do_ have experience with this.”

“I did make and watch over three Diamonds.” White shrugged.

Zircon nodded, thoughtful, and opened a new screen. “Tell me, who do you recommend I send for this mission?”

“You want my opinion?”

“You are the only gem with any experience with a situation like this. What is your suggestion?”

White thought about it. Zircon could make a team that stood a chance against this Diamond, it wasn’t impossible, but it was hard to be sure all of them would make it back. There were so many new variables to consider now in Era 3 that she didn’t feel bad for not being the one making these choices anymore.

“I could do it.” She said. “Better than risking your gems.”

Zircon was quiet for a moment, deep in thought. “This gem is a threat. Do what you have to do to neutralize it.”

White nodded.

“But don’t…” Zircon continued, but trailed off. “She is to have a fair trial. So don’t-”

“I am familiar with the current laws, my president.” White’s lips curled up slightly. In her mind she summarized this as “ _don’t do anything Steven wouldn’t want me to do_ ”, which worked well as both a reminder of what to do and of why.

“Report back to me once it’s done.” Zircon said, ending the call.

White turned back to the three gems that watched.

“My Diamond?” Peridot 3XO called in a shy tone.

White decided not to correct her, and sat down on the ground again. “Hm?”

“I understand that _she_ is dangerous, but…” She trailed off. White nodded to encourage her. “It’s not her fault. She didn’t ask to be made. All of this is my fault.”

“ _Our_ fault.” Peridot 3XP said.

“Please… don’t hurt her much.”

White blinked. She realized those two gems really cared about that Diamond, despite what she did to their colleague. She wanted to assure them that she wouldn’t hurt her at all, but she couldn’t make this promise.

“I will do what I can,” she said instead.

It wasn’t the most calming reply.

“Spinel, can you stay with them?” She said. “I think they could use the company.”

It wasn’t White’s main reason to ask it, of course. She knew Spinel to be a remarkably strong gem, but she still didn’t want her friend to take any risk, not if she could help it.

This was something she had to do alone.

“Will you be alright, White?”

“Of course I will.” White smiled.

* * *

The Peridots gave White Diamond the data of the registered explosions made by the Diamond - who she learned they called “Lilac” - and she left towards a group of mountains that seemed to be the likely place where she hid.

With White’s size, it shouldn’t be a very long journey, even with no warp pads around.

As she walked, White reflected on some things. Most gems emerged from the ground fully developed, not only physically but mentally, and as a result, there were almost no behavior issues from them. It was good this way. She loved Steven, really, but the slow and irregular way his body and mind developed until he reached maturity was not very efficient, and it would be a lot of work to look after an entire (former) empire of gems all in different development stages.

The way it was had its disadvantages as well. Gems were all made not only for a specific purpose, but also for a specific reality. When big changes happened - like the start of Era 3 - it was very hard for them to adapt. It was very hard for them to exist when their purpose became obsolete. White had seen it many times, at the beginning of the empire when things used to change a little more often, how hard it was to get older gems to adapt to new roles. With her mindset at the time, it seemed easier to just replace them. Now, of course, everyone worked so no gem would be left behind.

Things were not always like that, though. It took some time for gems to start being made with full knowledge of their purpose, and for some roles it was still too hard to make them ready for everything. This was the case of her three Diamonds. Pink was a specially complicated case because of how _different_ she was, her thoughts following patterns that were just unpredictable and too far from what White had expected of her, but Blue and Yellow had also been difficult during their “youth”. And each of them had their own unique set of powers with its own potential to cause damage. White had spent a few centuries just controlling and fixing this damage.

(Steven, she had heard from his human parent - the only member of his Earth family that was that open to her in the few times they met, hadn’t manifested his powers during his earlier, more unstable life stages, which was for the best for a gem who lived among organics, but he now had the same powers and destructive potential as Pink did, and that worried her at times.)

She didn’t know what to expect from Lilac, even after all she heard and saw in the base. She hoped she would be able to use the “Steven approach” with her and solve things talking, but she didn’t know how open Lilac would be to conversation. She still didn’t even know what made her lash out at the Peridots and run away.

White lost track of time as she was deep in her memories and in thoughts of what she would find when she found Lilac. Soon she saw herself at the base of one of the mountains, and she was preparing to climb when she noticed a large boulder that looked out of place. Could it be?

It was about White’s height. It could have just been kicked there by an angry Lilac, or it could be covering the entrance of a cave big enough for her to hide in. There was just one way to find out, White thought, as she knocked on it as if it was a door.

It didn’t surprise her when a voice shouted. “Go away!”

“Lilac? I’m White Diamond. I’m here to talk to you.”

There was a moment of silence. White took a step back, fully expecting the boulder to be pushed towards her.

It wasn’t. Instead, lilac fingers appeared from a small opening, before pushing with ease the boulder to the side, revealing Lilac Diamond.

The Peridots weren’t lying. She was small, but not as small as Pink. Her lavender hair fell on her shoulders, with bangs ending above her lilac eyes with diamond-shaped pupils. She wore a purple dress with a skirt that touched the ground, and a semi-transparent shawl. White couldn’t see her gem.

She looked scared.

“What are you doing here?”

“I just want to talk to you,” White said. “May I come in?”

Lilac stepped to the side to let White in. White entered and sat on the ground and motioned for Lilac to do the same, and she followed.

“How did you learn about me?” Lilac asked.

“That’s not important,” White said. She noticed that Lilac had her head down, her back curved down, as if she was trying to make herself smaller. It was odd to see a Diamond behaving this way.

Well, Lilac never had anyone to teach her how to behave like a Diamond, did her?

“Why are you here, Lilac?”

“I… I was hiding.” Lilac said. She risked looking up at White, but lowered her gaze once again the moment their eyes met. She remained silent.

“From the Peridots?” White asked, trying to encourage her to say more.

“Yes, and also…” She trailed off.

“From me?” White asked.

“I… I guess I should have known you would find out eventually. It’s for the best.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I know I am not supposed to exist,” Lilac said. “And I know I am defective. So it’s for the best that you found me, now you can ‘deal’ with me and I won’t cause any problems anymore.”

White could see what she meant. Back when she was still in charge, she would certainly sentence Lilac to eternity in a bubble. A gem that was selfishly made for a reason that was not to improve the empire had no place in her “perfect” Homeworld. She wouldn’t shatter her only because of her weakness for gems of her type. As terrible as White had been to her Diamonds in the past, even then she had never turned towards them her full wrath, nor intentionally hurt them in any way she thought they couldn’t handle. That had been out of an affection that was the closest thing to “love” that White knew at the time.

Past White had been wrong about many things, including her vision for the empire. She had learned a lot in the few years since she first met Steven.

It wasn’t surprising that Lilac, living with gems stuck in Era 2, had her mind stuck then too.

“We don’t use the word ‘defective’ anymore.” White finally said.

“What do you call now a gem that fails so badly her purpose that she does the exact opposite?” Lilac’s voice broke and she started crying.

“Her… name…?” White frowned. She wasn’t expecting this reaction. She had no idea what to say to a crying gem. _What would Steven do?_ “Lilac… is this about Peridot facet 5D8F cut 3XQ?”

Lilac nodded. “I was supposed to lead them, not hurt them. But…”

“You got angry.” White guessed.

“No. I mean, a little, but…” She shook her head. “There’s something wrong with me. I am just… not right… I can’t do what they expect from me.” She wiped her tears. “I was supposed to lead them. Every day, they would ask me what my orders were, but I just… I didn’t know… I would tell them to keep me company or play with me. I knew it was not what they wanted but I was afraid. When they started asking me what to do with the kindergarten or with the planet, I had no idea what to do! I don’t know anything about this!”

Purple sparks flew next to her fingers. White could almost see it. Lilac, afraid of disappointing, of not being enough, and the Peridots unknowingly putting more and more pressure on her. She loses control and runs away in shame and guilt.

White carefully took Lilac’s tense fingers in her hands. The motion surprised Lilac and that was enough to stop the sparks.

“You need to learn to control this.”

Lilac opened her mouth, then closed it again, and nodded.

“Did you know gems weren’t always made with a purpose?” White said in a soft tone.

Lilac frowned. “Why not?”

White frowned. “Your guess is as good as mine.” A deliberate pause. “I didn’t have one myself.”

She watched Lilac’s expression change as she took in the implications of what she was hearing. Soon the inevitable question came.

“Who made you?”

White felt the familiar ache that always accompanied it. There was a reason why she didn’t encourage gems to look too much into the past. She had become in the eyes of her gems a sort of goddess, a powerful bringer of life and light, and her power and age combined made it that they didn’t see her as a mere gem anymore. Birth and death were concepts that didn’t apply to the White Diamond of tales and murals, and White liked it that way. But they did apply to the real White, and while she didn’t know anything about her death and could only hope it would still take long, she remembered her birth and her first years in vivid detail.

“I don’t know.” She confessed.

Lilac’s frown deepened. “But surely someone…”

“Yes, I believe so.” White’s head lowered just a bit. “But whoever they were, they didn’t stay to see the result.” Another deliberate pause. Lilac nodded. “I didn’t have a purpose and I didn’t have anyone to guide me. I had to figure a lot of things on my own, including about myself. I was made the leader by the others.”

“You found your place,” Lilac said.

“I don’t know about that.” White shook her head. “To say the truth, I was much like you back then. I had no idea what I was doing. I made mistakes, and at times their cost was high. I got used to it eventually, to the point others believed I was above any flaw. I started believing it too. But the truth is that I still had no idea of what I was doing.”

Lilac looked confused. White smiled.

“And it shows. Now I know how wrong I was in the choices I made. But for the first time, I am free from the burden of pretending I know better.”

“I’m not sure I understand…” Lilac said.

“Your Peridots still believe the lie I told, that I know more than they do. It’s not their fault, I made them this way. They think they need someone who knows better to lead them. They expect this someone to be you.” She took Lilac’s hand again. “But it’s Era 3, Lilac. You don’t have to fulfill anyone’s expectations. You don’t have to be their leader. You can just be you.”

“But then, who will be their leader?”

“They don’t need one. Not the way they think they do. They don’t need someone giving orders to give their lives meaning.”

Lilac let a small smile appear on her lips. “So this is Era 3?”

White nodded. “It may seem chaotic at first, but everyone is much happier now.”

She was being sincere. There were many things that White still didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why she had to treat _different_ life forms the same way she treated her own kind when they clearly had an inferior understanding. She didn’t see what was wrong about taking resources from other planets if no one was using them. She didn’t understand why she shouldn’t say all she thought and why her sincerity could hurt others' feelings. For the first time in her long existence, she was accepting that others could understand something she didn’t, and she was willing to take their advice. And when she saw the smiles on her Diamonds' faces, or heard Spinel’s laugh, that made it all worth it. And when she felt that light, warm feeling in her own gem, for the first time she felt sure she was doing the right thing.

“What will happen to me now?” Lilac asked, her voice not hiding her fear.

“The president wants me to take you to Homeworld to answer for your actions.”

“Of course.” Lilac’s eyes got teary again. “I really didn’t mean to hurt her. I would do anything to undo that!”

“I’m sure Yellow can fix Peridot 3XQ,” White said.

“Really?” White nodded. Lilac’s face lit up.

“The Peridots also will have some explaining to do, though,” White added. “But that’s it. I am sure you all can begin again after it.”

“Do you think we will have the chance?”

“It’s not up to me to decide but… we did abolish death penalty, so I don’t see why not.”

* * *

The Peridots stood at attention as White Diamond entered again the base, but broke it once they saw Lilac Diamond.

“Lilac! Are you alright?” Peridot 3XO asked.

Lilac exchanged a look with White, and then kneeled down near the Peridots.

“I owe you many apologies.”

“Don’t worry about it, Lilac,” 3XO said.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” 3XP said.

Lilac shook her head, and her eyes briefly went to the bubble with 3XQ’s remains. “I hurt her, and I ran away. And also… I know what you made me for. I know I am supposed to be your leader, but… I can’t be the gem you want me to be. And I don’t want to. Not when I can be something else. I still don’t know what that will be, but I was told I don’t need to have it all figured out right now. I know you don’t like the idea of Era 3, but- but I feel I will be much happier in it than in whatever it is we are pretending to have here, and I- I think you would be happier too, if you only gave it a chance.”

The two Peridots exchanged a look. Lilac felt her confidence waver.

“Can we give it a chance?” She asked. “You don’t have to do it, this is not an order, it’s your choice…”

“Will this make you happy, Lilac?” 3XO asked.

Lilac nodded.

“Then we can try…”

White Diamond tuned out their conversation as the Peridots started asking how things would be and what now. She focused instead on Spinel, who stretched her legs and landed on her shoulder.

“These guys really care for this Lilac Diamond.” She said.

“She seems to really care about them too,” White said. “She is not bad, she was just afraid and acted out of this fear.”

“I know how it is.” Spinel sighed. White gently caressed the top of her head with a finger. “Will they be alright?”

White looked at the small group. Peridot 3XP gently held 3XQ’s bubble. From the teary smiles in all of their faces, she guessed Lilac told them that 3XQ could be fixed.

She thought back to her own family, held together by a few miracles.

“I believe they will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, it feels like it has been an eternity since I last posted anything. I hope you liked this!
> 
> I wrote this story because I realized that out of all types of gem OCs, I still didn't have a "Diamondsona", so I had to fix that. There are a lot of very good stories of ancient Diamonds so I decided to explore instead the concept of a young Diamond. This was supposed to be mostly about Lilac (and her Peri-moms) but White ended up stealing the show. It just seems fitting that someone as old and self-centered as her would have these random tangents where she thinks about her life in the middle of conversation or when she's bored. And it gave me the chance to expose some of my worldbuilding hcs. 
> 
> White is trying very hard, but she still has a long way to go. 
> 
> I really like the idea of White and Lilac being able to relate to each other due to being the most powerful creatures around in their respective times and places, and having no one to teach them. This whole "relating to others" thing is very new to White, as even with the other Diamonds she still focused more on their differences than on what they had in common, so I think this is a good step in the right direction. 
> 
> Lilac and the Peri-moms will be okay. I didn't want to try and figure something that made sense for Homeworld's law but both 5D8F/8XQ, as the victim, and 5D8F/8XO and 5D8F/8XP, as the witnesses, declared what Lilac did to be an accident, and White also spoke out to confirm that Lilac didn't seem to have good control of her powers. The group paid their debt to society and went back to Purpura to start over. Lilac got some lessons from White about controlling her powers too. I may write more about these characters, but for now nothing is set.
> 
> (By the way, Lilac's gem is on her lower back. I was supposed to have a scene in which White saw it but for some reason it didn't happen.)


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